The pale winter sun illuminates a white iron cross on a hill. Lines of stones, forming two rectangles, peek out from the muddy ground.
The ruins of Ravattula Church were discovered during archaeological excavations about four kilometres north-east of the centre of Turku in 2013, more than 800 years after the church was built.
The find was unique in Finland. Evidence of such an early place of Christian worship had been sought for over 150 years. Although there are many known cemeteries from the transition period between the Iron Age and the Middle Ages, no traces of church buildings from this period had ever been found.
This building predates the establishment of parishes by the Catholic Church in Finland. It is thought to have served as a private chapel or village church for the inhabitants of a nearby settlement until the early 1200s.
After it was abandoned, the memory of the church's existence faded. During the Middle Ages a wooden cross stood at the spot. Eventually all that remained was a name, Ristimäki, which literally means "Cross Hill".
As the excavations progressed, researchers began to realise what an extraordinary and unprecedented discovery they were dealing with.
Dispelling legends
According to legend, three crusades took place in Finland during the 1100s and 1200s, spreading the Catholic faith and assimilating the region into the Swedish realm.
Legends portray the First Crusade in the 1150s as imposing Christianity with the sword, forcing the new religion on the pagan Finns.
Juha Ruohonen, an archaeologist at the University of Turku, says this narrative does not fit with what we now know.
"Christianity certainly did not come as a result of the Crusades. It was a long process over many generations. It came gradually, perhaps from around the 900s, both through contacts between people and through missionary work," he explains.
Ruohonen is an expert on the site, having successfully defended his doctoral thesis on Ristimäki, its church, and the earliest ecclesiastical organisation in the Aura River valley in the autumn of 2024.
As the research has progressed, it has become increasingly clear what happened in the region at the time of the legendary First Crusade.
Unlike the later military expeditions known as the Second and Third Swedish Crusades, the lack of documentary sources has led to uncertainty about the First Crusade.
For example, one key source story of the time, that of the martyrdom of the missionary Bishop Henry at the hands of a Finnish peasant, was not written until a century after the events it purports to describe.
Now, however, research has replaced myth and legend.
"Based on archaeological material, we know that something very significant happened in the mid 1100s," says Ruohonen.
But was it some kind of crusade?
"The word "crusade" may be a misnomer, but the administrative change that officially incorporated Finnish territories into the Swedish realm and brought the people into the Catholic Church took place during this supposed crusade," Juha Ruohonen points out.
The events of the 1150s had a different effect than previously thought, as they led to the formation of parishes.
"In other words, local churches were established much earlier than previously thought, and the network of churches was also much denser than previously thought. The research has provided a lot of new information, especially at the local level," says Ruohonen.
The ruins at Ravattula, as the oldest known site of its kind in Finland, add to the understanding of many other historical details, such as the construction style of early church buildings and the structure of the communities they served.
Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Ravattula Church was completed shortly after the mid-12th century, by the 1170s at the latest. It was in use until about the middle of the 13th century.
The church on Ravattula's Ristimäki Hill was located close to the banks of the Aura River and along Hämeen Härkätie (The Oxen Road of Tavastia), a 160 kilometre link to the interior that is thought to have been in use at least as early as the 9th century.
Not only the remains of the church itself, but also an extensive cemetery surrounding it, have given researchers a wealth of new insights.
The fact that local people buried their loved ones close to the church shows the importance of the site to the community at the time.
Juha Ruohonen believes that there are hundreds of early graves at Ristimäki. Of these, 61 have been excavated.
The consolidation of Christianity in the Aura River valley can be seen in the burial practices at Ristimäki. The graves show evidence of the transition from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages. These people were buried according to Christian rites, but the old traditions and beliefs were still firmly anchored in people's minds. For example, the deceased were buried in their finest clothing and many had possessions buried with them.
"Maybe there were still old ideas that something was needed in the afterlife or that it would be cold," Ruohonen speculates.
According to Juha Ruohonen, the Catholic Church of the time wanted the deceased to be buried directly in the ground, wrapped in a linen shroud, without a coffin. Those buried on Ristimäki Hill were buried in coffins, dressed in their finest clothes.
Among the objects found in the graves are a spearhead, brooches and buckles used to fasten clothes or belts, and colourful beads.
The remains shed new light on the clothing of the period. To the great surprise of the researchers, well-preserved textiles were found in a grave next to the church, despite the fact that the acidic soil had destroyed most of the contents of the graves over the centuries.
Interdisciplinary studies, such as the study of the quality of the wool and the dyeing of the fragments, the archaeological analysis of the objects placed in the grave and the examination of the bones of the deceased, have been used to reconstruct an ancient costume using the most authentic materials and methods possible. Dubbed the Ravattula costume, it was handmade, right down to the fabrics and bronze ornaments.
All the finds from the excavation have been catalogued and stored in the archives of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Turku.
Bright and colourful glass beads that were recovered from several graves are particularly well preserved. These were originally strung on a leather cord around the neck of the deceased.
Decades of research ahead
Excavations at the Ristimäki site in Ravattula ended in 2016, at least for the time being.
"About one third of the area has been excavated. There would be enough to explore for many years or even decades," Ruohonen estimates.
What more the ruins and the surrounding cemetery can tell remains to be seen. Work on the material already recovered is continuing.
"Methods are developing all the time, so of course we are constantly gaining more information, even from small finds," Juha Ruohonen points out.
This item is largely based on an Yle Finnish-language report by Oona Seppänen.